It Takes a Village
by WonderStarLord
Summary: Or an extra-governmental military counter-terrorism and intelligence agency.
1. Chapter 1

**It Takes a Village**

 _MCU. Tony Stark and Lorelai Gilmore are contemporaries._

Disclaimer: Cheers, Amy! Thanks, Disney and Marvel! (I feel like there should be a Stan Lee cameo in here somewhere.)

Notes: Super!Lorelais – super brains and super brawn.

Lorelai was born two years later, 1970, the same year as Tony.

* * *

 **1983**

 **PHILLIPS ACADEMY ANDOVER | ANDOVER**

"I should be studying."

"Made totally obvious by the fact that you snuck into my room to see me."

"Maybe I snuck in to see Peter Cutler."

"You hate Peter Cutler."

"No I don't."

"Yes you do."

" _No_ , I _don't_."

" _Yes_ , you _do_."

"Why do you think I do?"

"Because you act like you do."

"Well, I don't."

"Whatever."

"I don't!"

"Right."

"I think I kinda like him, actually."

"What?"

"I actually like him. Kinda. I think."

"But you act like you don't like him."

"Exactly."

Tony Stark rolled his large brown eyes. " _Girls_."

" _Boys_ ," sighed Lorelai Gilmore, long-suffering.

It was way past curfew, the night before midterms, so of course nobody was sleeping. A small, plastic television set sat on a stack of vinyl records, playing _The Greatest American Hero_. Its spindly metal antennas were arranged at funny angles and the volume had been turned indecipherably low. Instead, it was the sounds of AC/DC's new _Flick of the Switch_ album and a bickering pair of thirteen-year-olds that rang prominent in this particular dorm room.

"Like you've never pulled a pigtail," said Lorelai.

"Only yours," said Tony while he fiddled with a Rubik's Cube. "Your head was so _huge_."

"I don't know about you, but I've never felt so flattered in all my life."

"Easy target."

"I can't believe Mom showed you those pictures."

"I can't believe that was _you_ in those pictures."

"I grew into it before I even met you!"

Tony didn't deign to look over at Lorelai as he smirked, pleased with himself. He was rescrambling the cube that he had absentmindedly configured into six matching chequered patterns on each side.

" _Easy target_ , my ass," Lorelai bit under her breath. Sprawled on the floor, she searched for something disgusting to throw at him. Dirty sock: _score_. Using a pair of pencils as impromptu chopsticks, she maturely threw the grass-stained, sweat-soaked thing onto the bed above her.

" _Ew!_ " Tony indignantly cried. "What the HELL, Lorelai?"

"I burnt them, you know."

"My socks? Because –" He paused. "Hmm." He tapped a contemplative finger on his chin. "I wouldn't actually mind that. You burning my socks." He tossed the offending item away. Far, far away from his terrible, tiny twin bed. _God_ , he _hated_ boarding school.

Still.

Better than _home_.

"Burn away," he allowed. "Jarvis'll just buy new ones."

Lorelai scrunched up her pert nose. "You disgusting rich person."

"You make that sound like a bad thing," said Tony indifferently, finished with the cube and tossing it away to join his lonely, dirty sock.

"Well, maybe it is."

"Well, _you're_ a disgusting rich person, too."

"Not like you, Mister _Stark_."

It was true. Lorelai came from all manner of Mayflower-descended, blue-blooded, hoity-toity New England old money, but Tony was the son of _Howard Stark_ , self-made millionaire with more bank than a small nation would know what to do with.

Lorelai continued, "Everything you've ever gotten hasn't been held hostage by strings."

"Golden thread, you mean."

"Gold-titanium wire."

"That'd be some pretty sturdy stuff," remarked Tony, pushing himself off his bed.

"Nigh indestructible."

He stepped over Lorelai, who was lying on the floor again, this time face-up, and towards his desk. "I don't know whether I'd rather have parents that breathe down my neck, like yours –" he was cut off.

"– or parents who are too busy doing their boring grown-up stuff to control your every move, like yours?" she finished for him.

Tony didn't respond. He chose to sit on his uncomfortable wooden desk chair and boot up his computer in silence.

The Starks and the Gilmores had lofty aspirations for their precious only children, but Lorelai was the one with parents who tried to micromanage every facet of her life. Tony's were more … well, _less_. Both were absent in their own ways, but his mom at least made an effort while his dad was hardly ever around. Like, ever. When Howard was, it was to tell Tony that he wasn't living up to his potential. Or to talk about Captain America. The old man _loved_ talking about _good ol' Cap_. Lorelai loved Cap's _dreamy eyes_ and _patriotic ass_. Tony, himself? Not a fan.

Lorelai rolled onto her side, facing him. Her shiny brown hair, already big from teasing and crimping and curling, had grown massive from her restless lazing on his carpeted dorm room floor.

"I really should be studying right now," she whined loudly, hoping to distract him. Tony's silence was disturbingly unTony-like.

Tony unearthed a heavy textbook from one of many hazardous mountains that ritualistically sprang anew at the start of each semester, and threw it in her general direction.

"Hey!" Lorelai had to jump back, wild hair flying everywhere, into a sitting position to avoid being smacked by a billion pounds of paper.

"There you go," said Tony happily. "Now you have no reason to complain."

"But –"

"You have no excuses."

"I –"

"Study."

"OK, then. _Howard_."

"Take that back! Rules of the room," he said seriously.

Lorelai scrunched up her face in distaste. "This is for Latin. I'm not even taking Latin. Who speaks Latin?"

"You, if you study."

"So …" Lorelai continued to attempt at distraction, "where _is_ Peter Cutler?"

Peter Cutler was Tony's roommate for the next however-many-years-it-would-take-to-ditch-this-place. He was your typical tall, dark and dumb dingbat, two years older and three grades below Tony and Lorelai. He was very into partying and very little interested in school (it wasn't like Tony was super into school either – being smart didn't automatically make him a _nerd_ – but he did like knowing things, and by default enjoyed learning, and therefore probably some aspect of schooling). In possession of anything of any substance between his ears, Peter Cutler was not. He had been suspended twice for pulling dumb pranks, for which he'd gotten _caught_ , and for some reason, it turned out that Lorelai _liked_ him.

"He's probably on his tenth bottle of Andre Cold Duck with Christopher Hayden and the rest of those idiots."

"Condescending with a side of bitter," observed Lorelai, amused and shuffling towards Tony. "You almost sound like you wish you were one of those idiots."

"Why? I've got my own idiot right here," Tony grinned at her.

She couldn't help smiling back. "Who're you calling an idiot, idiot?"

"A fellow idiot."

Lorelai poked her tongue out at him, only to smirk seconds later. "Wanna do something truly idiotic?" she suggested lightly.

Tony's lips curled in anticipation. He knew that look. They were about to do something _fun_. "On a scale from Hendrix to Joplin, what are we talking here?"

Lorelai jerked her chin at Tony's personal hardware, and then at another computer on the desk across the room belonging to one Peter Cutler, which was a veritable piece of junk until they had gotten their hands on it. They had ditched a handful of calculus classes to tinker, because a) the thing so pedestrian that Tony twitched at the thought of having to live in the same room as it, and b) poor Dr Wesson really didn't need the embarrassment of being corrected by his students for the umpteenth time.

"Last Tuesday," said Lorelai.

"I remember. Third period," said Tony. "You were wearing your _I SHOT EWING_ t-shirt."

"And you made quite the bold Pentagonal statement."

"Not so bold if I do it – which, I can – because, hello?" Tony waved a hand in front of Lorelai's face. "It's me."

"We've given Affirmed, here, enough horsepower to enter the race," she said, strolling to Peter Cutler's desk and then patting his computer case. "The only question left is who wins the brass ring – you and yours or his and mine?"

"I can't believe that's even a question." Tony interlaced his fingers and stretched his hands outwards.

"I'm gonna go with me," Lorelai retorted as she turned on Peter Cutler's computer.

Tony snorted. "The stakes?"

"Loser has to get a tattoo of the victor's choosing."

"Loser has to get a tattoo of the victor's choosing on the _appendage_ of the victor's choosing."

"I'm thinking left ass cheek."

"Right boob."

"Right on the crack."

"In a ring, perfect circle, two inch diameter."

"In your dreams, Tony."

"Oh, they have been."

"Your weird isn't going to distract me."

"Well then, may the best hacker win."

"May the best _Lorelai_ win."

"We'll see."

"Yeah, we will."

* * *

A/N: WIP. Just really wanted to put this up.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Years have passed. S.H.I.E.L.D. has two directors who don't quite see eye-to-eye. Our sweet little Rory was raised by a different kind of village.

A reminder that Lorelai was born two years later, 1970, the same year as Tony. Therefore, Rory was born in 1986.

* * *

"Why did you join S.H.I.E.L.D. in the first place?"

"My name is Lorelai Gilmore and my dad is Tony Stark."

"OK, so, your dad's Tony Stark. Why not just work for him?"

"I don't want to make weapons."

"You're at S.H.I.E.L.D. Slippery slope."

* * *

 **2006**

 **THE TRISKELION | S.H.I.E.L.D. HEADQUARTERS**

Lorelai cried, "She's not a spy, Nick!"

"Oh, really?" Fury opened the file he had brought with him. "Let's see here … top grades across the board."

"Well, that's Miss Perfect Work Ethic," she said factually.

"Combat, agility, marksmanship."

Lorelai tried to sound flippant. "So she's a soldier, at best."

"Espionage, first in her class."

"She's just a kid!"

"A kid who breezed through our Academy of Science and Technology," he said flatly.

"What happened to: 'She's too valuable to have in the field,' huh? 'She's too dangerous to keep around our hardware'?" interjected Lorelai. " _Huh_?"

Fury's tone turned to incredulity, "She got _bored_ at the Sandbox –"

"You can blame her father, for that one."

"She survived Operations. Walked away with flying colours –"

"Just because she's a good shot –"

"The _best_ shot. As good a sharpshooter as you, Lorelai. Maybe better."

"And with her speciality, she'll spend her whole career tallying every kill, and she'll be haunted by that number beyond the grave. I don't want that for her. She wanted to do her science thing at S.H.I.E.L.D., fine. I'd actually rather she'd chosen to blow things up with Tony as a civilian, but I accepted it."

"Kicking and screaming, from what I recall."

"I am _not_ OK with sending her into the field. She's isn't made for this."

"You mean you don't _want_ her to be. She's probably the most overqualified person we've got. She's done time at all three Academies –"

"'Done time' – a little too on the nose? All that steel and concrete. We should really get around to sprucing it up," Lorelai tried to deflect. "We could use a good spruce."

"Your daughter has been training for this since the day you brought her here."

"I didn't _bring_ my daughter here. I needed a job."

"And now she wants one, too."

"She already has a job."

"I know you're against this, Lorelai, but it isn't your decision."

"It's mine, Mom," Rory said firmly as she entered the room.

Fury smiled, smug. "Madam Director, say hello to Agent 88."

* * *

"I didn't want to make weapons and now I'm using them," said Rory bitterly.

* * *

 **2009**

 **STARK MANSION | MALIBU**

"Jarvis."

"Welcome home, s―"

"'I am Iron Man.' _Seriously_?" a familiar voice scoffed, its owner unseen in the dark. "You think you're the only superhero in the world? Oh, Tony … You've become part of a bigger universe and you just don't even know it."

Nonplussed, Tony blinked as a familiar face came into view. "Lor?"

"It's Madam Director now, actually."

"Director of what?"

"Director of S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Huh."

"I'm here to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative."

* * *

"I avoided working for Dad because I didn't want to make weapons. Only now …" Rory sighed deeply. "Only now, he's out of the weapons game and I'm the one with blood on my hands."

* * *

 **2011**

 **S.H.I.E.L.D. HEADQUARTERS | NEW YORK CITY**

"How's our best girl doing?" asked Trip after Agent 13 hung up.

Agent 13 put her hands on her hips. "Should I be offended? I feel like I should be offended."

"All right," he grinned, "how is _my_ best girl doing?"

She smirked. "Wrapping things up. Ready for extraction."

"How broken is the poor guy's heart this time?"

"Hey, Dugray!" she called across the room. "You can add another proposal to the tally!"

Thompson Dugray shook his head, added a mark on the board and joined them.

"Damn," said Trip.

"You know the company line," said Thom. " _'You want someone to be seduced, you send Romanoff. You need a target to fall in love, you send 88.'_ "

"Well, you two would know," laughed Agent 13.

Trip crossed his arms. "I only have experience with the latter, thank you very much."

Thom shrugged, feigning poorly executed nonchalance.

"In your dreams," Trip told him.

"Not even in your dreams, Dugray." Agent 13 looked at Thom pityingly. "Not even in your dreams."

* * *

"Rifles are her specialty."

"88's gotta be one of the best marksmen in the world."

"Not that the world knows about that."

"Probably the best. If you don't believe the _ghost stories_."

"She's great with knives."

"Packs a hell of a punch, too."

"Chip off the old 8 block."

* * *

 **2012**

 **S.H.I.E.L.D. HEADQUARTERS | NEW YORK CITY**

Steve felt … groggy. Sluggish, even. He hadn't felt nearly so weak since he was a ninety-pound asthmatic. He could breathe, though, and breathe _well_. His lungs were still as strong as they had been since the serum, thankfully, so there was at least that.

" _… our Commander-in-Chief, President Harry S. Truman, on the Manhattan Project …_ "

He could hear perfectly fine, too. His hearing remained excellent – both ears were fully functioning. He heard angry metropolitan traffic impatiently announcing itself outside, Kay Kyser softly crooning on a turntable, and a welcome voice to his immediate right.

" _…Hiroshima, and then Nagasaki …_ "

A feminine, vaguely familiar voice. It sounded almost like … _Rebecca Barnes_.

" _… according to Howard Stark …_ "

 _Oh, God_ , thought Steve. _Bucky's sister_. What was he going to say to –

"Becca?" asked Steve, sitting up quickly.

His eyes landed on … _not_ Rebecca.

A young woman sat comfortably on a simple white chair, carefully folding the yellowing newspaper she'd been reading from. Judging from her attire, she could have been an off-duty army nurse, in her white blouse and dark olive skirt. It looked a little strange, though. Not _quite_ right. Something about the way her clothes sat on her delicate frame was not quite _right_. In fact, just about everything in this room seemed _not_ quite right.

"Captain," she smiled kindly.

Steve blinked. He _knew_ that smile. But it was on the _wrong_ face.

She laid the old newspaper at the foot of his bed and said, "You're awake," apparently relieved. "Good morning." She checked her silver watch. "Or should I say, _afternoon_?"

Steve squinted to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. It wasn't like he was colour-blind again, but … He made a fist, flexing the muscles up one arm to check if the super-soldier serum had worn off or something. _Nope_ , he found out. He was perfectly fine – yet, he was seeing things. He was hearing things. He was seeing and hearing things that were _not quite right_ : a beautiful dame that sounded eerily like Bucky's little sister Becca, and looked an awful lot like Bucky's youngest sister Abby, but had the exact same smile as Bucky's baby brother Bobby. Her _eyes_ , though. He had never seen eyes like hers before. Big. Bright. Blue. _Vividly_ blue. Like the _cube_.

The _cube_! The _Valkyrie_! He had crashed that flying monstrosity into the ice.

"How …?"

He wasn't dead. He _should_ have been dead.

"I don't understand," said Steve cautiously. He slowly got off the bed and backed away from her. He needed to distance himself from this woman who was familiarity and wrongness in one. "What's going on?"

"You've been asleep, Captain Rogers."

"I gathered," he said, gesturing to the single bed he had woken up in. He picked up the newspaper that she had been reciting to him while he woke. He skimmed the headlines and checked the date. It was August – apparently, he had been sleeping for four months. "It's over? We won?"

She sombrely eyed the grainy black-and-white photo of the mushroom cloud accompanying the news article, seriousness shading her otherwise fair china doll face. "Something like that."

 _That sounded about right_ , Steve thought sadly. It was war.


End file.
